Nepal Prez summons Parl to end leadership deadlock

Kathmandu: Nepal`s President on Monday
summoned the winter session of parliament from January 9 in a
bid to end a six-month deadlock over the election of a new
prime Minister.

President Dr Ram Baran Yadav summoned the regular
session of parliament from January 9 after a meeting with
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and Speaker Subash Chandra
Nembang on Monday. The caretaker prime minister made the
recommendation to summon the parliament to Yadav during a
meeting with the president at his residence.

The main Opposition Maoist party stepped up
pressure on the president to summon a regular session of the
House as soon as possible after a deal to end the special
session of Parliament on December 23.

UCPN (Maoist) party warned that they would not sit for
peace talks unless the government summoned the parliament as
agreed earlier.

The House is expected to address key issues, including
the election of a new Prime Minister and the formation of a
government.

Last week, the President had prorogued the special
session of Parliament after a two-point agreement between the
three main parties, CPN-UML, Nepali Congress and the Unified
CPN-Maoist.

In tune with the accord, the Maoists had agreed to
withdraw their twin proposals in the House for terminating the
candidacy of of Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudyal and
starting of new election process.

Acting on a request from the main Opposition, Yadav
had called a special session of Parliament from December 19 in
a bid to break the political deadlock over failure of
lawmakers to elect a new leader despite 16 rounds of polls
In a landmark verdict aimed at ending the deadlock
over the election of a new prime minister, Nepal`s Supreme
Court earlier this month ruled that lawmakers in parliament
cannot choose to remain neutral or abstain from casting their
votes in the run-off poll.

It made it mandatory for lawmakers to cast their vote
in the parliamentary elections for the post of prime minister.

In a series of run-off polls since June 30, the UCPN
(Maoist) and CPN (UML) lawmakers have chosen not to vote for a
prime minister while Madhesi parties opted to stay neutral.

CPN-Maoist, which ended its decade-long civil war in
2006, is the single largest party with 238 seats, while Nepali
Congress (NC) has 114 members in the House.

The CPN-UML, the third largest party with a strength
of 109 and the Madhesi alliance with the combined strength of
some 80 lawmakers and other smaller parties have called for a
national government.

Premier Nepal is running a caretaker government since
he stood down under intense Maoists` pressure.